One topic that is all over everything lately is Silly Bandz. Why are they so popular? What do they represent? And most of all, why are they banned?
Forbes.com has an article -- Why Silly Bandz Are So, Like, Cool -- where they interviewed a second grader and a preschooler about them.
Basically, the reason the article stated they were banned is that they were distracting during classes -- because of the incessant trading and trading upsets -- and they could potentially be harmful. They are esentially rubber bands that form to shapes of all sorts of things: geckos, princesses, guitars, basically "animals and people and objects." But the kids wear them all up their arms and teachers are concerned that it might mess with their circulation.
So why are they "so cool?" Simply because you can trade them, and they are new. Basically they are taking the place of what baseball cards and pokemon cards used to be. There are rares which are stived for. If you have a lot of them, that ups your silly-bandz-status.
Being easily portable is another bonus. You don't need to "put them in your backpack" because you simply wear them. They are also fairly cheap and most stores carry them. (They actually cannot seem to have enough since they are so popular!)
So, jewelry has taken on a new role: trading. Not only are the kids wearing them as a fashion statement and to be "cool," but it also has become a common activity.
I've seen these in stores but I had no idea that they were all the craze. Interesting. It's almost like your exploring the subject of "youth jewelry" in this entry... which is often very faddish, such as the safety pin bracelets that my friends and I used to make, or the string bracelets made at summer camp. Not sure where this will fit into your final research article, but it's interesting! There are some short articles in the database about youth and jewelry trends, etc.
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